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National Adoption Awareness Month: Mary-Louise Parker!

Mary-Louise Parker (born August 2, 1964) is an American actress and writer. After making her stage debut as Rita in a Broadway production of Craig Lucas’s Prelude to a Kiss in 1990 (for which she received a Tony Award nomination), Parker came to prominence for film roles in Grand Canyon (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), The Client (1994), Bullets over Broadway (1994), Boys on the Side (1995), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and The Maker (1997). Among stage and independent film appearances thereafter, Parker received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Catherine Llewellyn in David Auburn’s Proof in 2001, among other accolades. Between 2001 and 2006, she recurred as Amy Gardner on the NBC television series The West Wing, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2002.

After receiving both Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Harper Pitt on the acclaimed HBO television miniseries Angels in America in 2003, Parker went on to enjoy large success as Nancy Botwin, the lead role on the television series Weeds, which ran from 2005 to 2012 and for which she received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series between 2007 and 2009 and received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2006.

Her later film appearances include roles in The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008), Red (2010), R.I.P.D. (2013), and Red 2 (2013). Since 2007, Parker has contributed articles to Esquire magazine and published her memoir, Dear Mr. You, in 2015. In 2017, she starred as Roma Guy on the ABC television miniseries When We Rise.

In September 2007, Parker adopted a baby girl, Caroline Aberash Parker, from Ethiopia

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From 2008, People Magazine, an article by Alastair Macpherson:

Mary-Louise Parker often reflects back on her childhood, wishing her parents would adopt a sibling and promising herself that someday, she would adopt a child of her own. Now mom to Caroline “Ash” Aberash, 2, the 44-year-old actress says the adoption from Africa was a dream fulfilled. “I think it’s something everyone should do if they can and wantto,” Mary-Louise said Saturday night at the New Yorker Festival in New York City.

“I can’t adopt 500 children, but I did adopt this one beautiful little girl and it was an amazing thing. Especially after having been to a Third World country, and having seenthe desperation there, and the need, and all the children, and holdingthose children and seeing them and touching them.”

Mary-Louise said that she recognizes that the need for adoptive parents is just as great in the United States as it is abroad, but believes every child should have a chance at a great life, regardless of geography:

“I hear the comment, “Why not adopt from this country?” There’s a lot of need in this country. And I think if you want to adopt anywhere it’s a beautiful thing, but it’s not a contest. So you shouldn’t say “Why don’t you adopt this child over that child.” A child is a child and every child deserves to be loved.

If was a contest, however, a Third World country is different from, say, Baltimore. It’s different when there are dead bodies by the side of the road and parents having to amputate their children’s limbs so children can beg to get money, and mothers are having to sell their daughters into sex slavery. It’s a different thing, so I don’t think you should make it a contest when it comes to children, and who’s deserving of love and who’s deserving of a family. Every child is deserving of that.”

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“Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and how Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped” leads a couple through their days of infertility treatments and adoption. It is told with gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) humor from the perspective of a nerdy father and his loving and understanding wife.

Join Mike and Esther as they go through IUIs and IFVs, as they search for an adoption agency, are selected by a birth mother, prepare their house, prepare their family, prepare themselves and wait for their daughter to be born a thousand miles from home.

WINNER: 2015 Reader’s Favorite Book Award Finalist, Non-Fiction Humor

WINNER: Honorable Mention, 2015 New York Book Festival!

WINNER: Honorable Mention, 2014 Great Midwest Book Festival

Abby’s Road is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and at Smashwords.